Sesskia’s Diary, part 103

15 Coloine, two hours past midnight

I was encouraged too soon. It didn’t work at all. I’m trying not to feel as downhearted as Terrael was. I think he knew how I felt, because he came to sit next to me when I’d retreated to my corner, before I started writing again, and gave me a board with a th’an marked on it in that dotted-line shape.

“It’s a fire-making th’an,” he said. “The fire-starting pouvra seems to be the one you’re most comfortable with. This might help clear your head, and maybe you can work out how it intersects with your pouvra.

He gave me some chalk and then went back to the circle. And he was right; it does help clear my head, even though I have no hope of learning to scribe the th’an in just a few hours. So I practice with it for half an hour, and then I go back to trying to make that complicated th’an work. It’s something to do when there’s nothing to write, like now.